3/6–Naples

Two sea days later – and here we are!  Nice days at sea, cold and a little rocky yesterday, but overall nice.  Reading, watching movies, and general do-nothingness for a couple of days is nice since we have 7 ports in a row now.  We’ll be ready for a sea day by then!

Today we arrived in Naples an hour and a half early. Not that it mattered to us – we have planned to just explore the city since we seem to always be going somewhere else when we get here.  Unfortunately, the weather is predicted to be cold and very windy – and just as unfortunate, the forecast is accurate.  It is wicked windy – gale force – and that makes it wicked cold with a wind chill.  Frost bite!

We do our leisurely thing, gym, light breakfast (we aren’t eating outside because we are going to Moderno, the Churrascaria, tonight and we know that will be a food fest!), then out into the cold stiff breeze. 

Our plan today is to go to the Castel Sant’Elmo, on the top of the hill overlooking Naples.  It is supposed to have incredible views and a good museum.  Then, depending on weather and tiredness levels, we might go into the historic center for some chapels with reputedly bizarre statues, and one with a major Caravaggio. 

Out on the street, there is major construction on the Piazza Muncipale – so our normal walkway is sort of cut off.  There is good signage though, and we follow the signs for the Funiculare Centrale – which will take us up to the castle.  The positive of the construction is that it diverts us right past the Castel Nuovo – a great old fortress of a thing with 5 crenelated towers and bullet holes from WWII.

Then we divert back into town, trying to follow the signs for the Funiculare, but they are confusing – and I know where I’m going anyway.  So we break off from the signs (sort of like not listening to Alice) and make our way up to Via Toledo (the shopping street) and into the Funiculare station with no problems.  Except the cold. Man, that wind is brutal. 

3 Euros for 2 tickets (fortunately we have change) and we catch the next funicular up the hill.  We are very glad we aren’t climbing up this one! It makes the Galata Tower climb seem like an anthill.  Once out on the streets in Vomero, the middle class local section of town, we once again start to follow the signs to the castle.  We don’t have a map of this area, so we are hoping our info on good signage is correct. 

We only get messed up once, but we can see the castle, so we’re not concerned.  The wind though is totally concerning.  It is really, really, really windy – maybe 30 knots?  The trees are bending and shaking, and swirling around with the wind. Metal signs are clanging around and bashing into fences and walls.  At one point a huge swirling gust comes up and I am quite literally scared.  I’ve never before felt actual fear in a wind storm, but I did up on that hill walking toward the castle.

We finally arrive – only to find the darn thing is closed due to the wind! No way! OMG – what a joke.  Crap, so back down the hill we go, fighting the wind, freezing our faces and fingers off. Nice walk – but still.  And forget about going to the historic part of town – you know – its just too darn cold, and we’ll be back here in 10 days, so if the weather is better, we’ll do it then. Sigh.

The only bonus is that we found a huge Carrefour grocery store so we could get cabin supplies, including my favorite Taralli snacks.  Yum.  And then we hit a café for cappuccino and wifi – although the wifi turned out to be worse than the ship.  At least the cappuccino was good – and we got warm and had a restroom break.

Back down the hill on the funicular, we wandered around Via Toledo, but its still too early for any of the restaurants to be open.

We figure we’ll head back to the ship – where we had seen a café with wifi.  They are open – thankfully! With seating upstairs in a tiny loft area, so we camp out with beer and wine (nice pours, nice price) and wifi which actually works so a couple of blog entries have been uploaded.  Not a total washout of a day.

Fortified, we head back out into the windstorm.  We want to get some more Euros since the conversion rate is so good, but at the only 2 ATMs we can find there are guys standing on the sidewalk selling knock off purses.  2 ATMs and 2 guys strategically placed.  Nope – not a chance.  We’re not normally worried about that sort of thing – but this was a little too obvious for us.  So – we’ll wait for tomorrow in Civitavecchia and then again in Livorno.

We whip our way back to the ship, not stopping for pictures or anything, just wanting the warmth inside that ship!  And back we stay – a nice cup of warm soup for lunch, then a couple of old ER episodes and the rest of our afternoon and night unfolds nicely – and safely and warmly.  If we weren’t coming back here so soon, maybe we’d have stayed out longer – but really – why torture ourselves when we can do this all again in a week and a half – hopefully with much better weather.